Willemijn Posthumus-van der Goot

Willemijn Posthumus-van der Goot (2 May 1897 – 16 January 1989) was a Dutch economist, feminist and radio broadcaster. As the first woman to attain a doctorate in economics in the Netherlands, her work focused on the impact of working women on the economy. Recognizing that there were few sources, she joined with other feminists to create the International Archives for the Women's Movement in 1935. Writing reports on women's work, she refuted government claims that women working outside the home was of no benefit. First proposed in 1939, the Household Council, which she saw as an organization to foster training and organize domestic laborers was instituted in 1950. She founded the International Association of Women in Radio, as an organization for professional development and networking in 1949. As a peace activist, she was involved in the promotion of pacifism and believing women had unique qualities for solving world problems, she established the International Scientific Institute for Feminine Interpretation. In 1982, in recognition of her significant contributions to the Dutch Women's Movement, Posthumus-van der Goot was appointed as an officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau. In 2008, she, her husband and sister, were honored as Righteous Among the Nations by the government of Israel, for their fostering children during the Dutch occupation by the Nazis.

Early life

Willemijn Hendrika van der Goot was born on 2 May 1897 in Pretoria, South Africa to Elisabeth Marijna (née Castens) and Fiepko van der Goot. Her father was an engineer and Lilian, as she was called, grew up with her sister, Annie, in the Dutch colony of Batavia, Dutch East Indies. She attended Gymnasium Koning Willem III obtaining a certificate to teach French in 1914. Moving to Switzerland, Van der Goot originally began her higher education studies in engineering in Lausanne, but when she decided to study economics instead, she transferred to the new school Nederlandsche Handels-Hoogeschool (Netherlands School of Commerce) in Rotterdam in 1920. During her studies, she joined the Rotterdam Female Students' Association and completing her studies in 1926. She went on to complete her dissertation, De besteding van het inkomen. Het indexcijfer van de kosten van levensonderhoud (The expenditure of income. The index of the cost of living) in 1930, graduating as the first woman to earn a PhD in economics in the Netherlands.

Career

Soon after completing her studies, on 19 January 1931 in London, Van der Goot married Nicolaas Wilhelmus Posthumus, a professor of economic history whom she had met during her schooling. Unable to find employment, particularly due to the government restriction on married women working during the Great Depression, she began to help her husband with his work. Starting in 1933, she prepared statistical information for his study of the History of the Leidse Sheet Metal Industry and his work on the History of Dutch Pricing. She also became more active as a feminist, attending a 1934 conference on Women's Rights and Equal Citizenship hosted by the Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht. Recognizing at the conference how little was known regarding women's economic contributions, Posthumus-van der Goot helped organize a conference the following year held in Bilthoven which resulted in the creation of the Jongeren Werk Comité (JWC) (Youth Work Committee), of which she would soon become president. That same year, she began an economic analysis for the Committee on Maintaining Women's Freedom for Labor to evaluate the impact of working women. Her research confirmed that in families where women worked outside the home functioned more efficiently than those where women worked solely as a housewife.

In trying to prepare the report, Posthumus-van der Goot recognized that there were no archival records which could be consulted that dealt solely with women's history. She joined Rosa Manus, a prominent feminist, and Johanna Naber, a historian interested in documenting women's history, in 1935 to found the International Archives for the Women's Movement (Dutch: Internationaal Archief voor de Vrouwenbeweging (IAV)) for the purpose of promoting scholarship on women's history and contributions to society. In 1936, she began working at Algemene Vereniging Radio Omroep (AVRO) as the head of radio programming for women. She launched a popular five-minute program Een kort gesprek van vrouw tot vrouw (A short chat from women to women) that aired from 1936 to 1952, except during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. That same year, she also became involved in pacifism and attended the Universal Gathering of Peace (French: Rassemblement universel pour la paix), held in Brussels. In 1937, when Minister Carl Romme proposed barring all married women from paid work, Posthumus-van der Goot not only published articles against Romme's preliminary draft law, but assisted in organizing a postcard campaign to flood the Ministry of Social Affairs with protests.

In 1938, Posthumus-van der Goot's daughter, Claire was born and the couple, who had previously lived in Amsterdam, moved to Noordwijk aan Zee, where they took up lodging with Lilian's sister Annie Diaz-van der Goot and her child, Liesbeth.

Second World War

When German soldiers were billeted in their home, the household moved to Leiden and began to work with the Dutch resistance to smuggle children out of Amsterdam and place them with foster families. She began to work on plans in 1939 to develop a Household Council, to organize domestic laborers and provide training for them. In 1940, the majority of the IAV collections were confiscated by Nazi looters and Rosa Manus was arrested, deported to a concentration camp and murdered. The following year, Johanna Naber also died, leaving Posthumus-van der Goot as the sole living founder of the IAV and in charge of recovery attempts. In 1943, ten-year-old Bertha Eveline Koster, known as "Bep", moved in with the extended family and stayed with them for the next two years. That same year, Posthumus-van der Goot began working with Jane de Iongh and Marga Klompé on reorganizing the IAV for the post-war period.